a. lot of smart c eight pm chemical weapons have reportedly been used in a rocket attack that killed twenty six people in northern syria with both the opposition and the government blaming each other for the assault we investigate this hour. big news stories making savers save banks cypriot stand to see up to ten percent of their life savings wiped away over e.u. bailout conditions evoking fear of money and beyond. a series of bomb attacks through baghdad killing dozens and injuring hundreds as iraq struggles to get back on its feet on the tenth anniversary of the u.s. led invasion. and human rights groups turned a blind eye to the growing hunger strike among guantanamo bay prisoners amid claims officials are doing everything they can to try to hush up the protest.

believing it's eight pm here in moscow kevin zero in this is r t international our top story then as you just heard a rocket attack on a town outside aleppo in syria's north left dozens dead including sixteen government soldiers these and what exactly happened on the ground but there are reports that chemical weapons could have been used both the syrian government and the opposition are accusing each other and was in the country recently he's here with me now in the studio and the details are still coming in about this it's still not been confirmed that chemical weapons have been used what do we know as the days been progressing here well kevin conflicting reports you're receiving from syria and as often the case over the last two years with a surprise in syria each side is accusing the other one and these accusations sound quite similar we're hearing from news agency national news agency the rabble. have

fired a missile containing chemical agents in the country's north not far from syria's biggest city aleppo a scene of devastation violence over the last year and that the attack has killed dozens of people and this is almost a direct of what we're hearing from a u.k. based opposition group syrian observatory for human rights the only differences beyond me is behind this attack i've contacted several people on the ground some journalists we used to work with in syria and they've also confirmed that these happened but it's very hard to verify at this point exactly who is behind the attack and how many people happened. we seem to be hearing neverending play and counterclaims it keeps going around a big circle doesn't it now absolutely and it's very hard for journalists even those working on the ground to to cover this conflict because there are always contradicting each reports contradict each other i remember when i was in hama in two thousand and eleven in august when the uprising has just started. a video

appeared on me to show him dead bodies being thrown from the cities and they were two descriptions before they speak to one say that these are the rabble zz and the other one saying that these are policemen well people of the regime and when we came at the scene when we arrived in the city of how much i mean it was just impossible to get the information on exactly what happened so it's always like it's a big challenge to join this program but it's such a tragedy this whole thing going on for so long and despite all the diplomatic efforts it's still continuing absolutely and and the war scene is that we've seen often intensification of violence and had a big international meetings on syria maybe you remember houla massacre last may. when that happened right on the eve of u.n. general assembly and in that respect the syrian opposition exile has just nominated a prime minister who is expected to fill a seat prepared. well here at the arab league meeting in qatar and again we see

intensification of the violence in iraq what do we know about my prime minister not actually very much. fifty years old he's a syrian born naturalized american has been living in taxes for decades he used to be executive and came to prominence working with a humanitarian agency during the war and of course expectations are very high that were very high that i mean these nomination to help stop the bloodshed in the country but what about the arab league meeting what do we what are we expecting from as i was tired unfortunately expectations were very high but unfortunately we can't expect to march of progress here though john kerry and russian foreign minister lavrov found common ground on the geneva declaration recent and kerry's response to have a personal relationship with our side it seems that fighting is continuing the ground violence and is intensifying as well as claims and size i mean

ready to talk actually are continuing to blame each other and are still warring sides. most of which pretty sure. clarke has written extensively about syria told us it's no accident. spent a large part of his life in the u.s. before being voted in those opposition prime minister let's take a listen. the americans want to make sure that when president assad falls they got their man in damascus and they cherry picked and he voted by thirty five people that it's quite ludicrous to argument if this guy has the right to rule syria where is present the south whether we support him or not does have sizable support in the country which is why still in power and so i think the answer your question the us wants this man as an ideal sort of leader opposed to south to take power and obviously to do the things expected of him which would be to open up this unit economy to u.s. multinationals productize economy and of course too great with hezbollah to break

with iran but we live in a sea of mud this for political president assad's forces to use chemical weapons and so if you know we find that chemical weapons has been used it has to be by the rebels and if that's the case then obviously that will highlight the hypocrisy of the u.s. and the west because they said that it be a red line a chemical weapons are use that only seems to apply if present sas forces use them the syrian army and so we've got to be consistent on these chemical weapons to use and it's wrong and if the rebels are using them they should be indicted for war crimes next tonight taking the bailout more than the extremes the e.u. is giving personal to mates of either for savers to save banks or go bankrupt that's what's on the cards many cypriots now stand there to see up to ten percent of their life savings are raised or secure indebted banks with a bailout from brussels artie's tesser a seller now reports on the volatile reaction it's got. what is happening right here in front of the parliament here and on to my left you might be hearing some chanting there some protesters already starting to gather who are against that

decision passed by brussels on saturday morning ten billion a year zero bailout on the condition that a one time bank deposit tax be imposed at this is really where the problem started the anger from the people coming where. attacks will be imposed on the money they hold in banks are the initial proposal was that everybody with any amount of money from one hundred thousand below will have six point seven five percent tax and those above one hundred thousand will get up to nine point nine percent now their leaders here are trying to scramble to find an acceptable. package here because it's seems that the expectation is that it will get through through parliament now the vote has been postponed we hear that it might be happening tomorrow now if we talk about the reaction from the ground they feel that the a small savers of modest savers who just simply been putting their money in the back are getting affected by this and those even those who are trying to keep their emotions in check are trying to be rational about this they feel that cyprus and the people have really been cornered and now are being used as guinea pigs as sort

of an experiment an economic experiment because this is the first time that the e.u. is going to be dipping into the savings of people and so now leaders are really scrambling to find an acceptable solution not just a problem and what are the people who are protesting on the streets clearly the anger seems to be boiling over a new crack if you will in this a euro zone story again i can hear the people chanting here they're really saying that it's putting the country putting the country into a corner so now the foreign investment here in cyprus making a big bulk of it you have russian and british investments here it could be in trouble when they're fearing capital flight people have been going out into the streets trying to empty a.t.m. machines trying to get their savings i've been to some of the machines the locals can get some money out of it and as the voters postponed the banks will remain closed it will be a problem. to get cash and liquidity flowing in the economy so where does that leave cyprus really if you put it one word is kind of a mess of right now there is no solution that they can see that's viable for all

parties involved whether economically or socially or even politically. so the cypriot parliament is no due to vote on the proposed cuts on wednesday about six hundred g.m.t. but for now let's get some perspective shall we on the levy with the united kingdom independence party and b.p. nigel farage. every fail of course comes with strings attached it's never easy but can cyprus afford the price the e.u. says here. well i mean what's really happening here is we have an irreconcilable split between the north and south of europe in the north of europe in particular i'm thinking about germany the netherlands and finland there are very strong political voices saying we do not want to go on bailing out southern european countries and bear in mind that cyprus is now the fifth country out of the seventeen that's needed to be bowed out and that is why the germans extracted the terms that they did but i must say even in my diaries predictions in this parliament over the years about the way the e.u.

bosses were behaving never did i think that they would in a completely unprecedented manner resort to stealing money from people's bank account well it's because only you can. afford cyprus to fail kernot look at that look at the jitters that have already happened over the over what's going on the last couple of days. well they can't afford to fail a car for greece to fail portugal spain they know that once one country goes the whole deck of cards will come tumbling down and countries like germany will realise absolutely vast losses possibly as much as one trillion euros so so they are prepared now to do anything literally anything to try to keep the euro afloat and that is why they've now resorted as i say to what can only be described as theft and now they've done it in one country they're quite capable of doing it it is really spain portugal or anywhere else in the message that sends to people who've

got savings in banks in those countries certainly if i was there is get your money out while you can but i guess there's also a duty to look after the many experts that are there in twenty ten almost twice as much british money went to cyprus as transfers from russia record of a country's official website surely got a responsibility to safeguard your constituents interest they're now. well i mean we you know what the british government have said is that they will stand surety for the british army soldiers and air force but what about all the earth who are living there how many thirty years of the government have had nothing to say on that subject what so ever and what the government ought to do is to help the british people living down there mostly pensioners but what the british government needs to do is to say to the hundreds of thousands of brits that are living in southern spain for goodness sake get your money out of that country and have a monthly transfer to pay your bills and that is what i'd like to see the chancellor george osborne do in his budget statement tomorrow in the house of

commons what sort of message they're sending to foreign investors him essentially they're being taxed to cure a crisis and they had no part in causing. don't invest in the euro zone do not invest anywhere in the euro zone you've got to be mad to do so because it's now run by people who don't respect democracy who don't respect the rule of law who don't respect the basic principles upon which western civilization is supposed to be based they are propping up a euro zone which in the end is going to collapse in disastrous failure and they are prepared to do anything to do so i think that this decision this german dominated and led decision is the worst decision we've seen so far in this whole euro zone crisis and focusing back in on cyprus that it's completely dependent on its banking industry to survive it is forced to accept these taxes it's going to leave its reputation in tatters and its livelihood in tatters isn't it. yes and i i think that if i were a member of the parliament in nicosia with

a vote coming up it looks like tomorrow now as far as know the vote keeps being delayed in the banks keep being closed for a further day i think i'd vote against this package i think frankly better to default to the bondholders and keep my most important industry going rather than accept these bullying terms from brussels what the tag say from cyprus being one lot of it various e.u. leaders recently said they're unhappy with the way tax savings work do you think do you think we'll see some change soon now. well i mean the have been happy about so-called tax havens for a very long time and ironically was continuing to turn a blind eye to meant to many activities that go on in luxemburg i mean look cyprus finds itself right now in a very difficult desperate position but i would say better to officially go bankrupt to default on international obligations and to do their best to keep

a banking industry and to keep some confidence in that country nigel farage if you can i can give independence party thank you for your time tonight. stay with us i'm kevin owen more news in just a minute's time after the break on r.t. . wealthy british style. markets. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into a report on our.

get more grim statistics fifty six people have been killed over two hundred wounded in a series of bombings across baghdad those attacks struck mostly shiite neighborhoods the city officials say they've been at least ten separate incidents including suicide car and roadside explosions in busy areas all within just an hour one of the deadliest attacks struck near the heavily fortified green zone the seat of many

government buildings and embassies no one has officially claimed responsibility but sunni militants have been stepping up their attacks in the country aiming to destabilize the government there so it's come as a rock marks ten years since a coalition now led by the u.s. and britain invaded the country for the consequences of the occupation with john glaser in washington d.c. is the editor of the antiwar dot com website john evening to you yeah and anniversary better or worse to come on this tenth anniversary do you think john. well it remains to be seen but what we can know for sure is that the constant lies told by the bush administration that the war would be over in a couple of months would be paid for by iraqi oil we would be greeted as liberators there would not be the sort of civil war that eventually descended on to iraq they were all wrong all of those predictions were wrong and yet these same types of neoconservatives can go on television and on book tours and sit in their fancy

homes and not feel embarrassed about how wrong they were iraq as they is in chaos right now flooded with sectarian tension and a dictatorship that the united states helped install sort of so it was if you listen to sorry johnny is the lesser of two evils if you listen listen to what tony blair had to say he'll say well the situation had been worse than the uprising we saw in syria if they hadn't gone in then yeah that might be comforting for him to say to himself and hopefully he repeats it to himself over and over and over with his eyes closed with ted on his pillow each night but the fact remains that the united states went to war in iraq in two thousand and three it was a preventive war which qualifies it as a war crime under inner. war crimes are a war of aggression when you wage a war without a justification of self-defense that is the supremum international crime in the

words of the nerve nuremberg tribunals. there is no justification for going in and no counter no it's a little counterfactual like blair's can possibly justify it it was morally legally and practically in strategically unjustified millions of dollars of being spent to try to restore the infrastructure the money well spent. no so many millions have been wasted in iraq that the number is truly immense it's too immense to grasp. the final cost of the iraq war might be approaching somewhere about six trillion dollars according to a recent study by brown university that's a number that nobody can really fathom and. we're going to be paying for it for a long long time and the lessons learned and the u.s. and its allies a talking about possible intervention in libya syria mali any lessons been learned

what we're all know what happened in the last ten years well. truly people in washington have not really learned their lesson you know it can be argued that the obama administration is weary of getting involved in another military quagmire in the middle east because of what happened in iraq so instead they focus on you know making the entire global war zone so they can drone anywhere they want so you know there are new complications and new problems but the fundamental lessons about the how wrong american empire is that has had has not been learned different or dot com thank you for your time on the program tonight. u.s. taxpayers are probably asking how much more than half to spend on iraq two on top of what's already been poured in as we've just been talking about the figure of eight hundred billion dollars continues to rise with costs mounting every second from dealing with returning personnel to the broader and social economic impact of

the war and this is now he then takes a closer look at the numbers. the decade long war in iraq may be officially over but american taxpayers are still paying for the cost of the invasion let's talk numbers the u.s. has spent more than sixty billion dollars in reconstruction in iraq so far that works out to about fifteen million dollars per day overall cost and other aid adds up to seven hundred and sixty seven billion dollars since the american led invasion and that's according to the congressional budget office but national priorities project a u.s. research group they estimate the real cost at over eight hundred billion dollars and they add that some funds are still being spent on ongoing projects and that number continues to rise every second now a major problem it seems is that all this cash the u.s. is coughing up isn't falling into the right hands or projects iraqi prime minister

nouri al maliki says funding could have brought a great change in iraq but there was misspending of money i want to give you some examples of this mis spending if you can call it that there are too many to name but here are some that i think really stand out in iraq's diyala province the u.s. began building a prison in two thousand and four but abandon the project after three years to flee a surge in violence now have complete facility cost american taxpayers forty million dollars but since in rubble and there are no plans to ever finish or use it according to the justice ministry also sub contractors overcharge the u.s. government thousands of dollars for supplies take a look at this control switch the u.s. pays nine hundred dollars for that when it's actually valued at just seven dollars eighty dollars for a section of a pipe that is actually valued at just a buck fifty and when you're talking hundreds of billions of dollars nine hundred bucks of course sounds like small change but obviously it's adding up here's

another one widespread fraud led by a former u.s. army officer cost tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks. nektar to government contracts for bottled water twenty two people were criminally convicted but still tens of millions of dollars in contracts for bottled water well for iraqis they're paying a different cost a government rife with corruption and in finding near daily deadly bombing still blast baghdad streets and a quarter of the country's thirty one million lives in poverty. the hunger strike one town of about a continues to go bad some as human rights groups criticize for ignoring the plight of the prisoners forty two days on as new detainees join the protest u.s. officials maintain that inmates have never been mistreated and attorneys represented several guantanamo bay prisoners though says many of them remain behind bars even though they were cleared long ago. there are one hundred sixty six people

at guantanamo of those who are probably at most twenty guys who are bad guys who were taken in later guys like khalid shaikh mohammad the other people are and most nothing more than half of them eighty six of them may have been cleared at least for three years and some during the bush administration cleared as innocent people and they're still there and they're frustrated i mean i don't care if you're held in the dorchester hotel in london or the best hotel the ritz carlton in moscow and you're confined to that room for eleven years and you can't see your family you can't go out and talk to people you can't read freely you can't get about i don't hear that so how is the condition even if you're fed the best food every day and believe me they're not i mean they are imprisoned improperly without a chance to get out that's the worst condition. attorneys or anyone sounding the alarm of the hunger strike one of the world's most controversial prisons. as the

latest now on the lack of official reaction to the protest. as the guantanamo hunger strike enters its forty second day there's been very little response and no outcry from international organizations the united nations for example has yet to comment or of knowledge the get no hunger strike now artsy did reach out to un human rights bodies in geneva and officials have promised to respond to our inquiry with a comment by tuesday afternoon now on the other hand the international committee of the red cross which last visited the island prison the third week of february doesn't knowledge that a hunger strike is taking place but so far all the organization has done is. that the i.c.r.c. believes past and current tensions at guantanamo to be the direct result of the uncertainty feast by detainees now compounding this problem is that it's been very

difficult to access any information about get most prisoners due to military censorship a reported one hundred thirty prisoners went on hunger strike in early february to protest the alleged confiscation of personal items such as photos and mail and the alleged sacrilegious handling of their qur'an now lawyers have reported that some of the prisoners are coughing up blood have lost two or more than twenty pounds and have been hospitalized experts medical experts say that by day forty five hunger strike participants can experience potential blindness and partial hearing loss on top of the navy commander announced that flights to the island prison from south florida will be terminated on april fifth now those flights have served as a vital air bridge for attorneys who are seeking to meet with their imprisoned clients

critics believe that this is an attempt by the defense department to limit the access that attorneys have with their clients reporting from new york. r.t. . well course we've been tracking the growing tone of a hunger strike for you if you want the bigger picture to log on to a website called great programs like the future mothers while much much college is stacy her to expose the too big to jail apparently she is on and off the suitable. there was a time in america when buses were officially segregated and today if they tried to resegregate the wall next to it there would be outrage throughout the usa every t.v. channel and newspaper so segregation in america was wrong but no america funding

segregation no for via foreign aid seems to be a ok and jim dandy arab language leaflets have been spread around west bank in palestinian areas asking residents to start using special bus lines plans to put palestinians on separate bus lines were first announced in november of two thousand and twelve after some complaints by jewish settlers of trouble on the buses between passengers of different ethnicities in regards to the special bus lines it's really human rights groups but selim said the attempt at segregation is appalling and the current arguments about security needs and overcrowding must not be allowed to kemah flushed blatant racism you know when south africa had apartheid they were slammed with sanctions including from the us but if you're israel go ahead and segregate all the buses you like and you'll still be the us is top recipient of foreign aid three point one billion dollars a year if there's one thing i don't like it's hypocrisy like this but that's just

my opinion. i am max kaiser welcome to the kaiser report happy birthday jamie diamond on the very day celebrating your birth scientists coded the d.n.a. . of the to perform face never tells more yes max kaiser indeed max it wasn't until we die was birthday a few days ago and new york times deal breaker celebrated with a happy birthday jamie diamond and talked about his birthday from march thirteenth

two thousand and eight in which he was eating dinner at a greek restaurant and received a call from gary parr allez art and to ask him to rescue bear stearns but on the same day this year we noticed that yes indeed scientists map tapeworm d.n.a. and you can see from this image here that is jamie dimon the tapeworm having dinner on his birthday in some intestine some regulator somewhere this well you don't see jamie diamond and this tape worm at the same time in the same room. basically because there's jamie. move move the. guy with the tape or i devoured the u.s. economy i still peoples money that have global do a. good thing.